That is totally weird since they won't let you add anything unless it's $100 or more. Maybe that $100 requirement will not be there anymore. But still why would I pay $125 for a resource that cost $100? Starting a new payment plan is not a viable option either because what if you start 10 new payment plans - that will be $50 extra a month for administration fees which is probably worse than the 25% they want to charge to add resources so either way we get screwed :(

Maybe is not for everybody because I have not received one of those emails informing me of that change.

DAL

ps. If that's the route they want to go I think they should make exceptions for upgrades; especially if an upgrade is $100 or more.

So the situation was to put things in context, I have 1 plan ending in two payments and another ending in 7 payments. Faithlife has been trying to get me to combine those and then add on a number of expensive wish list items and extend the payment plan out two years.

Well now they have thrown this wrinkle in, full email:

Faithlife/Logos/Verbum is moving towards a new Payment plan policy and because I sent you a payment plan offer recently I want to make sure you know about it first.

Starting on Monday, in order to add resources to a payment plan we will need to charge 25% of the new order total. But if you get back to me concerning the offer I sent you, even if you are interested in other resources, I will be able to help add them to your plan without a down payment until this Saturday.

As always, keep my contact info handy and send me an email or call my direct line at 360-398-5199 if you are interested in any new resources and I will work hard to give you the best service and pricing available. If there is anything that you are interested in today, simply reply to this email.

I can handle $25 on a resource that costs $100. But those that are a lot more (the Collectors Edition) - completely out of the question.

Thats what I'm saying - upgrades should be excluded! I'm not upgrading every BP all at once! I can't upgrade to L7 standard and the other denominations all at once; especially when my Standard BP upgrade will probably be as expensive as my last one with dynamic pricing and all.

I've actually only ever used a payment plan once and that was a few years ago so I guess I was not included in this mass email. If I understand things correctly I think many will be discouraged from adding resources to their payment plans. Perhaps this was the intent.

Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God

Just to be clear, we aren't charging a new fee -- we're just asking that the first payment be 25% of the new purchase.

So if you bought something for $800, the first payment would be 25% = $200, and could then be $100 / month (plus $5/mo fee) for six months for the remainder.

Payment plans have been a great way to help users build their libraries with smaller monthly payments. Unfortunately our sales model has become 'addicted' to payment plans, and they now represent too large a percentage of our sales. The way accounting rules work, when we book this $800 sale we owe royalties, taxes, etc. immediately on the whole balance. With people making payments of < $100, for as many as 24 months (or sometimes more), we're far too often caught in a situation where a new $800 sale costs us hundreds in cash many months before we're able to collect are costs, let alone our (not that large) profit.

This is especially true as many users (at our sales team's suggestion) have simply added new purchases to the end of their payment plans. So someone with 3 months remaining at $100/mo buys a new $500 product by just adding 5 months to their payments.

This is good for you, and for us -- on paper. But in the checking account this creates significant obligations (the part of the $500 we need to pay in royalties, taxes, etc.) long before we get to collecting the revenue.

This is a small inconvenience that bank loans and cash management can handle -- if it represents a fraction of your sales (which it did for us, for many years). Now it's grown to the point that we need to tweak the parameters for new purchases.

Please continue to provide feedback, and we'll continue tweaking the program, just as we've been doing all along. Payment plans started with many more limitations / a shorter time frame / etc. We loosened that up, responding to the market, and now we're just tightening it up for the same reason. We'll continue to tune the parameters to find a balance that works for you while allowing us to pay the bills -- because we can't promise the power company or rights holders or employees or the IRS to just wait a year to get paid! :-)

yeah - thats probably going to price me right out of any significant purchases in the future.

Good luck FL team. IF this is how its going to go - on a pragmatic level - once I'm paid off, I'm done with payment plans. This will in practice mean instead of ~10k a year (paid 9kish in the last two years, and have about 8 to go of the total of nearly 20k roughly that I've spent in total), I'll likely be spending a small fraction of that.

Hope it works for you. But my days of spending thousands have been brought to an end.

Well the email(s) that have gone out were confusing in their wording for one.

For another, for such a well used benefit to paying for resources as the cause for this change, it is not being well communicated. Really, this should be communicated better and in say at least a month in advance. What many people were going to hear when? Monday? Or just when they tried to add a resource?

Now the explanation above makes more sense, but will add some more consideration when doing a payment plan. May have to opt more for the savings account option, though the only downside is for Faithlife as that will push out purchases a year or more instead of paying for them over that two years.

So does they 25% up front payment included on new payment plan setups?

I don't think that it is illogical for you to ask for 25% down, it will just mean saving up to buy bigger ticket items, which just means hopefully we could get some advanced notice or extra time frames on promotions/sales. But IMO it is completely understandable for Faithlife to make adjustments to be sure their bills get paid.